Geography Archives: Americas

  Among those who signed the books of condolences, leaving diverse expressions of love and respect, are students of the Latin American School of Medicine who are from the United States, the youth that the Reverend Lucius Walker, leader of Pastors for Peace, brought to Cuba. At the Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos […]

The sky has been overcast for decades.  Since 1973 the income, working conditions, and life prospects of common people in the United States have been ground down.  In 2008 the storm arrived.  A huge recession poured down sheets of unemployment, took away health care from four million more people, and pushed the carrot of retirement […]

The new regulations on banks’ capital requirements known as Basel 3, made known to the public in mid-September, are a major institutional boost to the monopolistic position of the largest banks.1  In the new framework the capital that banks must hold against lending activities has been raised from a ratio of 2%, established by Basel […]

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based neoconservative “think tank” that has consistently promoted hard-line policies against the Islamic Republic, came out with what it describes as “a comprehensive report . . . identifying 10 major Chinese energy companies that continue to do business with Iran in spite of international sanctions.”  According […]

For several centuries — between the 15th and the early 19th centuries — mercantilist theories dominated the attitude to trade in Europe.  This was the belief that an economy that had positive net exports (through exports being greater than imports) would be wealthier because it would lead to an inflow of bullion, or assets, and […]

José Serra on the sinking ship of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, whose mascot is a blue and yellow tucano (toucan). . . . Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

  Paul Jay: So there’s elections coming up in Venezuela, September 26, for the National Assembly.  Tell us who controls the National Assembly now in Venezuela and what’s at stake in these elections. Gregory Wilpert: Well, right now the National Assembly is entirely controlled by Chávez supporters.  That’s because the last elections, 2005, the opposition […]

Arnaldo Testi.  Capture the Flag: The Stars and Stripes in American History.  Translated by Noor Giovanni Mazhar.  New York and London: New York University Press, 2010.  165 pages, $22.95, cloth. There’s no shortage of iconic images featuring the United States flag — Washington Crossing the Delaware, The Spirit of ’76, Iwo Jima, and the moon […]

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) was established at Bretton Woods in July 1944, at the initiative of forty-five countries that had come together for the first monetary and financial conference of the United Nations.  In 2010, it had 186 member countries, with Kosovo its latest addition (it joined in June 2009). The […]

  On August 26, the French newspaper Le Monde revealed the existence of a draft UN report on the most serious violations of human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo over an eleven-year period (1993-2003).1  The massive draft report states that after the Rwandan Patriotic Front’s takeover of Rwanda in 1994, it proceeded to […]

For decades Gideon Levy has used the platform provided by the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz to shine a light on the brutal realities of Israel’s occupation.  His journalism, along with that of his colleague Amira Hass, has been an invaluable resource not only for Israeli readers but, through the Ha’aretz website, for international audiences seeking […]

In connection with the release of his memoirs, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has given a number of interviews this week in which he endorses the first-use of military force to stop Iran’s nuclear development.  Blair’s statements on the matter prompted us to reflect on where European policies toward the Islamic Republic are really […]

  John Summa and John Travers, filmmakers, are currently working on The Power of Their Song: The Untold Story of Latin America’s New Song Movement. | Print  

  Patricio Guzmán is a Chilean filmmaker.  The above is a clip from Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary (Dir. Pepita Ferrari, 2009).  The Battle of Chile is available from Icarus Films: <icarusfilms.com/new98/boc.html>.  For more information about Chris Marker, visit <www.chrismarker.org>. | Print  

Neoclassical economic models are based on the assumption that investment is financed from household savings.  Accordingly, capital accumulation will be maximized by policies aimed at increasing household savings rates and capital imports (“foreign savings”).  These models also predict that capital should flow from rich to poor countries, attracted by higher rates of return. However, facts […]

We noticed a small news item, reported from Tehran, which we think deserves more media attention and reflection in the West than it received.  According to the story, Chinese Transport Minister Liu Zhijun is expected to visit Iran Sunday to sign a $2 billion contract to build a 360-mile-long railway linking key Iranian destinations that […]

  Elaine Carey.  Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968 Mexico.  Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005.  240 pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8263-3545-6. The 1968 Tlatelolco student massacre has been a topic of scholarly inquiry ever since the fateful day when hundreds of Mexican students lost their lives at the hands of […]

7 September 2010 The Reverend Lucius Walker died, this morning, of a massive heart attack in New York at the age of 80, CubaDebate was informed by sources from Pastors for Peace, the organization that he led. Pastors for Peace, organizing US-Cuba Friendshipment Caravans, has systematically broken the US blockade on Cuba, bringing the island […]

  Born in Barajagua, Holguín, Cuba in 1949, Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) became recognized in the universe of Cuban cartoons in the late 1960s. From 1968 he began to work for Juventud Rebelde and soon became part of the golden era of Dedeté, the humor supplement of this newspaper. His work as a cartoonist, […]

  Daniel Branch.  Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.  xx + 250 pp.  $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-11382-3; $24.99 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-13090-5. The two related themes in Kenya’s history that have drawn the most debate and interpretations are land and the Mau Mau war.  Daniel Branch’s study […]